Boris Johnson tours construction of new Mountbatten Building

Published: 25 June 2007

Boris Johnson MP, Shadow Minister for Higher Education, spent over an hour today (Friday 22 June) touring the construction of the new £55M Mountbatten Building. He was particularly impressed by the scale of the building and the potential of the future research to be carried out there.

He was accompanied on his tour by Professor David Payne, Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre, and Professor Harvey Rutt, Deputy Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, along with Professor Adam Wheeler, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University, and David Amos, Project Director for Bovis Lend Lease.

Mr Johnson was particularly interested to hear about how the purpose-built Mountbatten Complex would provide an excellent environment and opportunity for teams of researchers to pave the way for crucial future developments in the field of nanotechnology.

His tour of the Mountbatten Building site was part of a day-long visit to the University of Southampton which also included a tour of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.